The Buddha, The Dharma, The Sangha

"Spiritual powers and their wondrous functioning--hauling water and carrying firewood." --Layman Pang, upon his realization

Saturday, April 12, 2008

"...while walking in a park, the body may be in the park while the mind is off working in the office, or at home, or talking to a distant friend, or making a list of grocery. That means the mind has disconnected from the body. Instead, when looking at a flower, really look at it. Be fully present. With the help of the flower, bring the mind back to the park. Appreciation for sensory experience reconnects mind and body. When the experience of the flower is felt throughout the body, a healing occurs; this can be the same when seeing a tree, smelling smoke, feeling the cloth of your shirt, hearing a bird call, or tasting an apple. Train yourself to vividly experience sensory objects without judgment. Try completely to be the eye with form, the nose with smell, the ear with sound, and so on. Try to be complete in experience while remaining in just the bare awareness of the sensory object.

When this ability is developed, reactions will still occur. Upon seeing the flower, judgements about its beauty will arise, or a smell may be judged to be foul. Even so, with practice, the connection to the pure sensory experience can be maintained rather than continuing to become lost in the mind's distraction Being distracted by a cloud of concepts is a habit and it can be replaced with a new habit: using bodily sensual experience to bring us to the presence, to connect us to the beauty of the world, to the vivd and nourishing experience of life that lies under our distractions. This is the underpinning of successful dream yoga."

No comments:

The Blue Lotus Seed: A Buddhist journal

Welcome to The Blue Lotus Seed, a space created to offer the Dharma, through poetry, art, musings and discourse. The lotus is a water flower that begins in mud and sediment, rising through murky water as it pushes to reach the surface. The flower pod, tight and drab green, slowly opens to the sky. In Buddhist lore, the lotus is a symbol of our humble beginnings, and what waits for us, as we come ever closer to realizing our Buddha Nature.

Guests

Blog Archive

Dharma Profile

A Buddhist Priest with The Blue Mountain Lotus Society, Order of the Dragonfly, I began seriously studying Buddhism June of 2005. After I received the Precepts, things moved very quickly. I committed to the 3 year Priest Studies
Program directed by Sensei Anthony Stultz of Harrisburg, PA.
In May of 2010, I finished my course of studies, and I am now a fully ordained Osho.
All opinions expressed in this blog are my own humble reflections of the Dharma, however deluded, and my most sincere hope for Upaya, the skillful manifestation of the Prajnaparamitta, inspired by Bodhidharma, Shinran, Dogen Zenji, Bankei and all of my excellent teachers, both past, present and future, all alive in the indestructable, unborn, immutable Buddha Nature. May all beings be free from suffering and the causes of suffering, May all beings be free!